F the spam bloggers
Take a look at this ego feed from PubSub: It is taken over by spam blogs, every one from Blogspot.
Is it time for tough love: Should PubSub, IceRocket, Technorati, et al refuse to index Blogspot blogs until Google does something? Google, after all, should be the very best placed company in the world to deal with spam sites. Funny how the similar ego search on Google blogsearch turns up no spam. Google needs to both fix Blogspot and share its secrets for ignoring blogspam.
More from Chris Pirillo, Dave Winer, Tim Bray, Dan Gillmor,
Tags: Weblogs
October 16th, 2005 at 8:20 pm
Jeff,
Let’s hope Google does something soon like using word verification. As someone who users blogger, this sort of thing is scary. It’s not fun to be lost in the spam.
October 16th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
I took a look today, and while you more prominent guys may be targeted, it seems that splogs are only 1/3 of Blogspots blogs.
October 16th, 2005 at 9:52 pm
Ultimately there isn’t any permanent solution to this kind of thing. Any system which permits anyone to create readable material on anyone else’s system will be abused by spammers.
The only real solution is to assume that a certain percentage of people out there are hostile, and to design accordingly. Automatic trackback, for instance, was always a terrible idea because it assumed universal good faith.
October 16th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
By the way, has it occurred to you that it is economically to Google’s advantage to let the current situation persist? As long as Google can keep its own search results clean, then the spam blogs will make everyone else’s search engines useless and thus drive traffic to Google.
Why would Google want to change the situation? Certainly it would be both illegal and immoral for Google to actively work to pollute the search results of its competitors, but I don’t think that benign neglect of spammer abuse of Blogspot is actionable, and it serves the same purpose. Certainly if that’s what Google is thinking, then it’s slimy. But not illegal, and not actionable. And it’s difficult to see why Google would want to expend any significant effort to try to fix the situation.
October 17th, 2005 at 1:23 am
Jeff,
We’ve been working on this situation for months, and we’ve been working together with the big blog publishers to help deal with spam infestations like what happened over the weekend.
You’ll notice that Technorati’s results should have significantly less spam than before, and we’re continuing to work really hard to keep our index as comprehensive as possible while eliminating spam as quickly as possible, ideally even before any of it gets indexed.
We also are passing this info on to the relevant publishers so that they can eliminate the problem at its source. It’s going to be a multi-tiered resolution, especially because we all want an open blogosphere that allows and encourages anyone to join in the fun.
Dave
October 17th, 2005 at 2:44 am
[...] Looks like I’m not alone, several other bloggers are reporting on this, including Chris Pirillo, Tim Bray, Jeff Jarvis, Dave Winer, Dan Gillmor and Matt Howie. Many of them, including Mark Cuban, are trying to put pressure on Google (who owns Blogger, which runs the Blogspot service) to act quickly to stop the spread of these splogs. tags: google, blogs, blog, splog, spam, blogspot – posted by Scott Beale on Sunday, October 16th, 2005 Comments RSS feed | Trackback URL [...]
October 17th, 2005 at 4:55 am
[...] Jeff Jarvis get angry and says “Google needs to both fix Blogspot and share its secrets for ignoring blogspam” with his post: F the Spam Bloggers [...]
October 17th, 2005 at 5:29 am
[...] Over at Jeff Jarvis there is some discussion as well on the very same topic. Sreven Den Beste comments along the lines that splogs on blogger.com might be beneficial to google. They definitely are. Wether intended or not: Google knows which blogs on blogger get read and which ones not. That alone makes for huge head start for all search efforts. [...]
October 17th, 2005 at 9:54 am
[...] Despite lots of chatter among high profile bloggers, he says the data don’t support that we are having a worse spam attack now than in previous rounds Meanwhile, Chris Pirillo, Mark Cuban, Matt Haughey, Jeff Jarvis and Tim Bray scream about the spam blog problem this weekend. We monitor blogs for several clients, and spam blogs have certainly made our work less efficient and as effective the past week or so. [...]
October 17th, 2005 at 10:23 am
Unfortunately, this isn’t new. I dare say that the number of spamblogs being created on Blogspot has remained about the same — it’s the tactics that are different. They’ve started using high-profile bloggers feeds instead of pre-generated content which is why you’re seeing your name more often.
See here for my thoughts on it and a possible PubSub-ian solution.
October 17th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
The splogging phenomena is simply underscoring the need for a degree of handsorting in the search engines. Google’s proposed trust rank would have the effect of eliminating a good deal of this sort of spam.
However, if you want to see a really good implementation of a human/machine sorting system go over to Memorandum.com where Gabe Rivera has built what may be the next generation of content seeking algos.
October 17th, 2005 at 8:01 pm
I am not with you, as blogspot has a option to check if this is a real person or a spam-bon when sending a comment, you just have to write down some letters written in a image (word verification).
October 18th, 2005 at 4:02 am
Google had just has much trouble with the splogs as anyone (although they have done a lot to improve it in the last 24 hours). The trick it to search their blog search by date - then it was terrible, and can still be pretty spammy. See here for further details
October 19th, 2005 at 9:34 pm
[...] BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » F the spam bloggers What is this? Bash BlogSpot week? (tags: google spam splogs blogs blogger blogspot) [...]
October 27th, 2005 at 4:31 pm
Jeff - I’m getting spam in Google Blogsearch here.
October 30th, 2005 at 2:56 am
[...] But Google itself seems to have closed that hole, according to Jeff Jarvis, who noted that searches on Google are free from the splog listings found in identical searches on PubSub and IceRocket, among others. “Google needs to both fix Blogspot and share its secrets for ignoring blogspam,” Jarvis writes. Leave a comment • Trackback (0) [...]
November 29th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
When a spammer recently forged our domain name it was difficult to get help from Google, but it did not take long for them to penalize our Adsense and Adwords accounts. We had nothing to do with the spam.
June 5th, 2006 at 2:02 am
[...] I won’t say more because all of the key bloggers have already said enough: Chris Pirillo, Tim Bray, Mark Cuban, Dan Gillmor, Jeff Jarvis, Robert Scoble, evhead. And many many others, you can check memeorandum for real time coverage. [...]
December 12th, 2006 at 9:41 am
But anyone knows the meaning of a spammer? I thought spamming is when someone gives unwanted emails..
May 12th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Hi My Name Is ivalrt.